$394 Million Slice Of Budget To Area

January 10, 1989|By ROBERT BECKER and CHARLES H. BOGINO Staff Writers

Of the $18.2 billion that the Reagan administration's final defense budget proposes for military construction nationwide during the next two fiscal years, approximately $394 million would be spent in Hampton Roads, according to Pentagon figures.

Virginia's state total would be $600 million in those two fiscal years, which begin Oct. 1.

In the largest single local construction item, the proposal calls for replacing the aging Portsmouth Naval Hospital with a new facility costing $184.5 million.

The spending plan also includes construction of a $1.1 million child care center at Fort Monroe and building community centers and a family housing referral office at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base in Virginia Beach, costing $370,000, and at the Norfolk Navy Base, costing $830,000.

Most analysts think that the Reagan Administration's budget is optimistic and President-elect George Bush will submit a more modest request in February. Unless changes are made then, the Department of Defense will be asking Congress to finance:

The center would be used for college entrance and military testing, correspondence courses and military technical training programs. Those sessions are now held in a group of trailers near a housing area.

"Obviously, they have to walk between trailers if they want to coordinate with anyone else," base spokeswoman 2nd Lt. Robyn Whalen said.

The new center would have classrooms, laboratories, offices and a studio for a closed-circuit television station that would serve the base, Whalen said. Whalen said the plans call for the center to be used for military training during the day and for college courses at night.

In 1987, Langley tried to get money approved to build the center, but failed.

* $5.2 million for dormitories to house 288 enlisted people at Langley AFB.

"Some of the dorms that we have now are outdated," Whalen said. "We're not expecting any great influx of people. It's just to update what we have."

* $600,000 for a "hush house" at Langley, a sound-proof building to contain noise from work on engines being repaired.

"They can't do that in a regular hanger because the noise would be horrendous," Whalen said.

* $12 million for a firefighter training center at the Norfolk Fleet Training Center.

The buildings would be for the Navy's newest landing craft, called the LCAC, for landing craft air cushion vehicle, which rides on a cushion of air above the water and onto the shore.

It can travel at about 45 miles per hour, nearly 35 miles per hour faster than other landing craft, said Lt. Cmdr. John Lloyd, a spokesman for the Atlantic Fleet's surface forces.

Currently, five ships carry the LCACs, Lloyd said.

The new child care center at Fort Monroe would expand opportunities there. A month ago, workmen completed a $350,000 renovation to the existing child care center, increasing its capacity to approximately 75 youngsters.

No information was available Monday on how many additional youngsters could be handled by the new facility, which would be built beside the current center, post spokesman Wayne Kanoy said.

For families at Navy bases in Hampton Roads, the money for improving two base housing complexes is not matched with funds for additional housing units, said John Peters, a spokesman for the Atlantic Fleet's Facilities Engineering Command.

Two community centers, one at Hewitt Farms Apartments at the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base, and the other at Carper Apartments in Virginia Beach, will have meeting rooms, game rooms, an arts and crafts center and kitchens for the residents of those housing areas, Peters said.

There is no center at Carper Apartments now. The project also would include two athletic fields. The Hewitt Farms proposal replaces an existing center, Peters said.

"It's called the Butler Building; it's kind of like a quonset hut," Peters said. "It needs to go."

A 3,000-square-foot housing referral office is also planned for Little Creek. Peters described the office as "kind of a central clearing house for what rental properties are available in the area."